Trump Administration Wants to Move Bears Ears Lawsuits to Utah-Based Court

The Trump administration would like lawsuits challenging the President’s downsizing of two Utah national monuments to be heard in that state rather than in federal court in Washington, D.C. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the administration is seeking a change of venue for five separate lawsuits by tribal and conservation groups filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuits contest the legality of Trump’s drastic reductions in the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. A recent poll by the Tribune and the Hinckley Institute of Politics found that Utah’s residents are about evenly split over whether Trump was right to change the monuments’ boundaries.